Fruit juices including mixtures are available on the market in various forms such as unsweetened and sweetened, frozen and unfrozen, including concentrated and fully diluted. These fruit juices, in the frozen state, are characterized generally as exhibiting a crystalline structure in many cases that breaks into layers or lamina which frequently exhibits a needle-like structure with the crystals being most noticeable. Thus, these commercial frozen juices can, with their needle-like crystal structure, cause injury to the mouth. On the other hand, the frozen juices sold with a stick frozen therein are described as being quiescent in nature but exhibit the harsh feel in the mouth of crystalline ice or needles as contrasted with the soothing feel of the instant whipped or whipped frozen product. The prior art teaches how to avoid or reduce the above disadvantages and have generally added solids for the purpose of aiding the sweetening and freezing of the juices where these solids or additives are other than fruit juice origin and contains refined sugar, corn sweeteners, and the like, including artificial colors and flavors.
After World War II, there was an upsurge in popularity of soft frozen ice cream and drinks, which led to a desire to produce a soft frozen all-natural fruit juice. This desire has not been adequately attained because those who practiced the prior art found natural fruit juice would not produce a product acceptable to the consumer. When a person eats a frozen product, the taste buds are partially anesthetized and the juice concentrate has to be diluted to attain desired sweetness, or balance the tartness and flavor, high potency sweeteners or dextrose, sucrose, fructose, lactose and similar sugars are used.
Although applicant's copending applications referred to herein before supplied a commercially satisfactory and viable all fruit juice, soft serve product, this invention supplies a modification thereof that gives a superior hard pack product and allows specialty products to be made.
The present invention relates to a fruit juice mix which, in the whipped and/or frozen state, exhibits the absence from the mass of a unitary or essentially a unitary crystalline lattice network having shear planes less than about 0.1 up to about 0.5 centimeter in length and good storage stability. More particularly, the present invention relates to a fruit juice mix capable of being whipped and/or frozen having a brix value of greater than 10 to about 35 and generally 20 to 30 with various combinations of juice or juices, natural flavoring and stabilizers including xanthan gum to give a whipped and/or frozen mass having a soothing, creamy, satisfying mouth feel and taste in the mouth even after extended storage at minus 18.degree. C. or lower as well as shelf life and heat stock stability.
A specific embodiment of this invention relates to use of ion exchange treated and/or ultrafiltrated juice or juices to give mixtures having improved storage stability at ambient to freezing temperatures and permitting products such as drinks and frozen creams to be made from a mix stored for months at ambient temperatures where the mix may have a flavor characteristic of the red, orange and yellow juices that are more difficult to store without losing their fresh taste or color as well as whipped frozen product losing their smooth, fine texture appearance or becoming icy, coarse and gummy.